Michael Clark:  

niversity, but was running out of money (with no prospects for a scholarship), so I joined the US Army. I had always wanted to join the Army anyway, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I found the Army suitable enough that I stayed in for 8 years before deciding that that was enough. Went to Basic Training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, then Advanced Infantry Training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. This post has a nickname among the troops, Ft. Puke, Lousy-ana, and it definitely lived up to it. But for the most part I enjoyed all this military training; my specialty was Infantry Mortars. I ended up after 4 months of training in the best physical shape I had ever been in, before or since. After training I was stationed at Ft Lewis, Washington state, with the 9th Infantry Division (2nd Battalion 39th Infantry Regiment), but after two years I transferred into the Field Artillery. A few months before the end of my first "hitch" I decided to re-enlist in a more technical occupation, and went into the Signal Corps as a microwave communications equipment repairer. This required an entire year's worth of training at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. While I was at Gordon I met my wife, Val. Upon graduation from Signal School I was stationed in Germany, coincidently in my wife's old hometown in Ulm! Her mother was still living there, even! So, it was like coming home to a place you had never been before, sort of. We spent 3 years in Germany, but at the end of that hitch we decided not to continue in the Army, but to settle down. Since I had liked my tour in Washington state so much, we ended up moving there after my discharge. I left the Army as a Sergeant (E-5). For whatever reason, during my tour of duty I was never called upon to actually serve in combat, although some of my old buddies who stayed in participated in the invasion of Grenada. If I had stayed in long enough to retire, I might have participated in the first Gulf War.